Giving and Taking – Antidotes to a Culture of Greed

Description

What if the exchanges we call economic were part of a much larger, far older and more diffuse system of exchange? What if value were defined not by accumulation but by circulation, and circulation not by supply and demand but by honor, glory and beauty? For one thing, it would be impossible to develop a critique of political economy from a political or economic viewpoint, because something in this notion of value utterly escapes both disciplines. In this volume, a diverse set of authors share a strikingly similar analysis. The crisis of our institutions of government, finance and knowledge, they argue, should be attributed not to a lack of political will but to a lack of glory and honor – categories that have been linked to gift and sacrifice from time immemorial.